ABSTRACTS

Basic Color Terms in Estonian Sign Language

The article is written in the tradition of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay’s theory of
basic color terms . According to this theory there is a universal inventory of
eleven basic color categories from which the basic color terms of any given
language are always drawn. The number of basic color terms varies from 2 to 11
and in a language having a fully developed color system there are eleven basic
color terms: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink,
orange and gray. The studies about basic color terms in sign
languages show that lexicalization of basic color terms in sign languages
follows the same pattern found in spoken languages. The current study is the
first close study on the color terminology in Estonian Sign Language. The survey
was carried out in summer 2005 and consisted of three tasks, following Davies
and Corbett’s field method: the list task, the City University color vision test
and the color-naming task. Fifty ESL users from different parts of Estonia were
interviewed for the study. The collected data shows that the BCT hierarchy is
clearly displayed in Estonian Sign Language and it may be concluded that
Estonian Sign Language is a Stage VII language and has nine basic color terms:
black, white, red, yellow, green, blue,
gray, brown and pink/purple.

Examinations of the etymology of American Sign Language have typically involved
superficial analyses of signs as they exist over a short period of time. While
it is widely known that ASL is related to French Sign Language, there has yet to
be a comprehensive study of this historic relationship between their lexicons.
This article presents preliminary results of an exhaustive study of historic
documents in French Sign Language and American Sign Language, as well as
fieldwork in regions in France and the United States that will ultimately
culminate in a historic dictionary of American Sign Language. We present
evidence of relationships in six categories and conclude that a thorough account
of the history of ASL requires a systematic examination of contemporary and
historic documents in both languages.

Toward a Phonetic Representation of
Signs, i: Sequentiality and Contrast

In this paper we examine the theory of the structure of signs that grew
from Stokoe’s (1965) proposals. We begin by examining argument for
the structural simultaneity of signs by examining claims about how
signs contrast and how cheremes function. Historically, such discussions
have involved three claims: (1) that signs are composed of a single
handshape, a single location, and a sequence of movements, and
(2) that these structural aspects account for contrast between signs in
the same way that phonemes account for contrast in spoken languages,
and (3) that this is evidence of dual patterning.

Using a number of different examples, we evaluate these claims from
the perspective of the standard definitions of contrast and duality of pattern,
showing that discussions drawn from this reasoning are not consistent
with standard notions of the phoneme or of double articulation
and duality of pattern. We suggest that, if signed languages in fact are
structured in the way Stokoe proposed—an approach maintained even
in recent work (Meir et al. 2007, 537–39)—then the phoneme and notions
of duality of pattern must be redefined for signed languages.

We demonstrate, however, that the putative simultaneity proposed
by this model does not adequately represent actual observations about the
structure of signing and conclude that a model with inherent sequentiality
of segments provides a more precise description of signs. We evaluate
several such models, finding each to be inadequate, and end with the
claim that an adequate descriptive system for signed languages will employ
sequential segments. Such a system would be consistent with notions
of contrast and duality of pattern developed for other languages.